There isn’t a month that goes by that Netflix doesn’t lose some of its movies on loan from other studios.
This month, however, is particularly rough since Netflix is poised to drop some films that are legitimate classics in their respective genres.
The Watch With Us team has narrowed those selections down to the five best Netflix movies to watch before they leave in December.
Fortunately, you’ll have until Sunday to pick your times and catch these films before they head off to other streamers.
Tom Hanks won Best Actor two years in a row before starring in Apollo 13, but he was snubbed a three-peat nomination despite turning in another great performance as Commander Jim Lovell. Ron Howard directed this biopic about the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission that could have gone down as one of the worst disasters in the history of NASA.
Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton also star as Jack Swigert and Fred Haise, the other astronauts in Apollo 13 with Lovell. Their mission was to return to the moon. But once the ship is heavily damaged, their only goal is to find a way to survive the journey back to Earth. Ed Harris was Oscar-nominated for playing Gene Kranz, the mission director at NASA who had never lost an astronaut on his watch, and he wasn’t about to start now.
Apollo 13 is streaming on Netflix until December 1.
One of the brilliant aspects of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is that the comedy works on several levels. The primary plot of the film is silly, but it does have stakes. Austin Powers (Mike Myers) and his evil counterpart, Dr. Evil (Myers), are farcical characters who are more ridiculous than the rest of the world around them. Both men were frozen in the ’60s, and they’re wildly out of place in the ’90s.
Dr. Evil awakens from stasis to find that he has a clone son, Scott Evil (Seth Green), who hates him, and no one takes his ransom threats seriously anymore. Austin has trouble adjusting to no longer being dashing and sexy in the modern era, and his old partner’s daughter, Vanessa Kensington (Elizabeth Hurley), just doesn’t fall for his mojo. Regardless, the movie keeps the laughs coming, and this film mercilessly mocks three decades’ worth of James Bond movies.
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is streaming on Netflix until December 1.
How many times does Tom Cruise have to die to save the world? We lost count in Edge of Tomorrow, in part because not all of his deaths play out on screen. Major William Cage (Cruise) crossed the wrong man and found himself demoted to private just in time to fight an alien invasion on the frontline. It was always a suicide mission for Cage, but because he was exposed to alien blood before he died, Cage gets to relive each day just like the aliens do.
Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) once had the same power, and under her tutelage, Cage becomes a fierce warrior. But living and dying so many times has taken its toll on Cage. He can only watch the people he cares about die so many times before wondering if there’s anything he can truly do to end war.
Edge of Tomorrow is streaming on Netflix until December 1.
If you’ve already seen E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, it probably won’t take much for you to recall the iconic imagery of director Steven Spielberg and the soaring music of John Williams. It’s a sci-fi film with a ton of emotional resonance, and it’s probably because most of the story is very down to Earth. The Taylor family is very ordinary until they meet E.T., voiced by the late Pat Welsh.
E.T. is an alien who was accidentally left behind on our strange world, but he makes fast friends with Elliot Taylor (Henry Thomas) and his siblings, Gertie (Drew Barrymore) and Michael (Robert MacNaughton). The kids love E.T., and he loves them as well. But being on Earth is killing E.T., and if he doesn’t find a way to get home fast, his psychic bond with Elliot may claim both of their lives.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is streaming on Netflix until December 1.
Not even history is safe in a Quentin Tarantino movie, especially if he’ll have more fun by changing the events to suit his story. Inglourious Basterds takes place during World War II and follows the titular team of black ops soldiers, led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) and Sergeant Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth). The Basterds are behind enemy lines in occupied France and unleashing Hell on the Nazis with their brutal tactics.
Meanwhile, a young French woman, Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), is executing her own plans to bring down the Nazi regime. She has a personal grudge against Standartenführer Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), the man who was personally responsible for the death of her family. That gives Shosanna some common ground with the Basterds, but for all of their abilities, the soldiers remain severely outnumbered and their odds of survival are going down.
Inglourious Basterds is streaming on Netflix until December 1.
